Lionesse Beauty Bar celestolite Snake Oil Arcadia California

I was given a free sample and asked to come inside for a demo of one of their products. I went inside and she applied a product to the area of my skin under my eye. The area under my eye grew very tight and plump after she blew the product dry with a small fan. She showed me how great it looked under my eye and told me that if I kept applying it once a week every week after six months that my eyes would look like that all the time. (My eye looked 20 years younger, at least). She told me the package contained enough product to last a year.

 

I looked at the ingredients list and specifically asked if the product contained any retinoids because there was such a huge imediate difference and I've read that retinoids are amazing. Some of the ingredients were listed as peptides. I bought the product which came with two other products and a free facial.

 

I came back within the hour for the facial. I was told to lay down. During the facial, the saleswoman tried to sell me a package that included an LED wand, 12 facials and some skin care products. She covered the wrinkles on my face with a gel-like substance and claimed that my wrinkles were gone. At first, I believed her because even though my face looked waxy, I couldn't see any wrinkles! I told her I could commit to something like that if I liked the results after a longer time.

 

She told me that the cost was normally $7,000 and that she paid $88,000 herself for these treatments and that she was going to be able to give it to me for $3,600. I told her it was way too much, I said, "That's more than I make in a month." Hoping that would dissuade her.

 

She asked me for my credit card so she could "check something", she never said she was going to charge my card. She came back and told me I qualified for a discount because of the kind of credit card I had. She reduced the price to a whopping $2900. I told her it was too expensive. She applied the goop to the other side of my face.

 

She asked to see my card again supposedly to confirm that it was my first time in the store which would allow me to get another discount. She never told me she was going to charge my credit card for any amount. She asked me to pinky-swear her that I wouldn't tell the other store associates the price she was offering me. She was ridiculous and high pressure. I felt like I had to stay lying down or the physical mask that was now on my face would fall to the floor. I don't think she has a license to be an aesthetician. I didn't see it in the treatment room and she didn't act like any other aesthetician that I've ever seen in my entire life.

 

Eventually, I figured out that she was just covering the wrinkles with gel and I told her so, she insisted that wasn't the case and she kept trying to tell me that the wrinkles were gone and could be gone permanently if I continued getting treatments like this with her. I told her I thought she was just covering up the wrinkles and that they were still there. At one point, I even pushed the gel on a known wrinkle location aside and uncovered a wrinkle and she reprimaded me and told me I shouldn't touch my face because I have bacteria on my hand. Despite having a wrinkle completely exposed above my eybrow/nose (called an "11"), she still insisted that it wasn't there. 

 

I strongly felt like she was trying to manipulate me.

 

I told her I wasn't interested and then she told me she already ran my card for the amount. I told her that she would give me a refund then. She replied that she would see what she could do and that she was texting the owner of the company to see if it would be possible but that it might take 1-2 weeks for the refund to go through. I said I didn't care how long it took. I thought I might have to call the Police/Mall Security Guard.

 

Eventually she told me that the card wouldn't allow the amount to go through. But I wondered if she was just telling me that to get rid of me. 

 

I left. I wondered if she really charged my card. This all happened on a Sunday. 

 

After I got home, the three products that I did purchase for over $400 seemed largely suspect. I started to investigate them and discovered that one of the three packages was completely empty, had NO PRODUCT in it, this was the eye gel that she demo'd in the store that made me want to buy them in the first palce. The second product smelled strongly of denatured alcohol which isn’t on the list of ingredients, and the third product that was used as an exfoliator to pill up dirt on my arm, which I was told were dead skin cells, did the same thing on the clean countertop - I think the stuff that pills up on its own, isn't dead skin cells at all but some kind of glue agent that pills up. 

 

Now I also believe that the eye gel that made my eyes younger was actually just a chemical reaction that is temporary. She told me if I continued to use it that it would be permanent. I believe she was lying. 

 

I called my card company on Monday morning at 7am, and they told me that the business tried to charge my card TWICE, the first time was for over $4,100 which is a figure that was never even brought up, and then they tried to charge me for $2,900. I told my card company that I did not authorize either charge and that I didn't sign anything. They told me they were cancelling the credit card and going to replace it with another one.

 

I'm convinced that this company is a total con. They're called celestolite and they're associated with Lionesse Beauty Bar. (The place I went into was called Lionesse Beauty Bar and the saleswoman told me that they're changing their signage and they've already changed their name to celestolite.)